


Dreaming of Plot Interruption

by VagabondDawn



Category: Dreaming of Sunshine - Silver Queen, 人渣反派自救系统 - 墨香铜臭 | The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gardens, Crossover, Dimensional Travel, Dreaming of Sunshine Exchange 2019 B, Gen, Silver Queen's Dreaming of Sunshine Universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-29
Updated: 2019-12-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:40:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22011202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VagabondDawn/pseuds/VagabondDawn
Summary: 【Unscheduled Crossover event initiated! Mission unlocked; The Many Gardens of the Corpse Princess. System will reboot now. 】
Comments: 15
Kudos: 339
Collections: Dreaming of Sunshine Exchange 2019 B, Heliocentrism — a Dreaming of Sunshine recursive collection





	Dreaming of Plot Interruption

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wafflelate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wafflelate/gifts).



The Xiu Ya sword bites into Luo Binghe’s chest, just over his heart, and Luo Binghe _allows it._

Shen Qingqiu trembles like he is the one being stabbed, not the one doing the stabbing. His precious student, his white sheep disciple, doesn’t move. Not to escape the blade, not to counterattack, nothing. If Shen Qingqiu presses forward, his sword will slide so easily through that white lotus heart. 

If it were Shen Qingqiu- 

If Shen Qingqiu were standing on the edge of the Endless Abyss, maybe he too would refuse to fall and accept a quick and painless death on the blade of a righteous cultivator. 

Except he wouldn’t. He _knows_ he wouldn’t. He would take every chance to live just a _little_ longer, putting off death till the next moment and the next, no matter how unsightly. 

He knows, because this moment is his own Endless Abyss. Here is Shen Qingqiu’s choice: to throw his student down to the Endless Abyss, or die. And here Shen Qingqiu chooses to live, to cause suffering in others even if that suffering in turn becomes revisited upon himself later. 

He kicks out. His foot connects with all the power of an immortal cultivator. Luo Binghe slides off the end of Xiu Ya, blood dripping from it’s point, and falls back into the gaping arms of the Endless Abyss. 

Shen Qingqiu watches as the darkness swallows him. The white and pale green of his Qing Jing uniform growing smaller and smaller before vanishing absolutely. 

The earth shakes as, plot point completed, the tear-in-space openings to the Endless Abyss slowly begin to close. It makes his eyes hurt to watch, the shitty-CGI-but-unfortunately-real way reality layers back over itself, but he keeps staring dully at it anyway. 

And then- 

There is a feeling of… of creeping dread filling the air. The space around Shen Qingqiu seems to grow darker, as though the shadows are spilling out of the Endless Abyss and into Jue Di Gorge. 

_The protagonist is down!_ He howls mentally. _There’s no need for the demons to have a second wind! There’s no narrative reason for that, you shitty novel!_

【Warning! 】the system chimes, but somewhat unsteadily. He hopes the stupid thing isn’t glitching. He hopes the stupid thing _is_ glitching. 【Unscheduled Crossover event initiated! Mission unlocked; The Many Gardens of the Corpse Princess. System will reboot now. 】 

Reboot? _Reboot?! What does that mean?! Do you think you can just_ leave _when things go wrong?_

The system gives a cheerful din-din-din-din musical tone of a computer shutting down and says nothing more. 

Shen Qingqiu makes an inarticulate sound of rage and spits a mouthful of blood onto the ground. His hand tightens around the hilt of Xiu Ya, but he’s _incredibly aware_ that he’s exhausted and out of spiritual energy. 

Behind him, Shang Qinghua forgets that he’s playing dead and says ‘what the fuck’ and ‘I never wrote any crossovers’ which- 

-well, that explains some things. 

“You hack of an author,” Shen Qingqiu hisses, glad to have a target for his ire. “What the hell is going on?” 

Which is exactly the second that the Endless Abyss explodes outwards. 

It really does seem like an explosion – the slowly closing edges of the Abyss are forced back open and darkness spills out. The rising fear and terror grips their hearts and for a split second Shen Qingqiu can almost see the shape of a being in it, the way a formation level cultivator might be able to glimpse upon a golden core, or a golden core cultivator might guess at a nascent soul – that something must exist above you, more powerful, that you strive towards, even if you can’t understand just yet. 

And then it’s gone. The darkness resolves itself into the shape of a girl. She’s holding Luo Binghe in one hand by the collar of his robes, as though she has dragged him back up out of the Endless Abyss. She spins around, facing the opening and the _thing inside is-_

“ **No,** ” she says, sternly, as if talking to a badly behaved dog. “You are not welcome here.” 

The Endless Abyss snaps closed. 

Shen Qingqiu stares, for a long silent second. He wishes he had his fan, to hide his face behind, to tap thoughtfully against his chin. There is a ringing silence around him, from the closed Abyss, from the unconscious state (or faked unconscious state) of the other cultivators, and the absence of the system. 

_But he fell_. Shen Qingqiu thinks, absurdly. _I pushed him. Like I had to. Surely it still counts even if someone has pulled him out._

The system is silent. And, well. Shen Qingqiu will take any chance to live a little bit longer, any option to defer death until a later date. If the system is gone… 

That’s not _his_ fault, is it? 

“And who,” he asks, “are you?” 

The girl turns around. Not fast, as if she’s alarmed by him (rude, he’s _still_ a Peak Lord, even if he’s a little bit downtrodden right now), and there’s an almost smirk on her face. “You can call me Shikabane-hime. And that,” she jerks her thumb over her shoulder to where the Endless Abyss was, “was Jashin. God of evil and stuff like that. There was a bit of an opening in your evil plane, and he slipped through but I got him in time. I’m on a bit of a quest to get rid of him, you know how it goes.” 

Shen Qingqiu can’t say he does, but agreeing seems safest. “Quite.” 


End file.
